Tuesday, January 25, 2011

An Astonishing Twist of Fate

By Dee Newman

Just northeast of the California Pacific Medical Center on Castro Street in San Francisco is Duboce Park. Years ago in 1996 while my friend Jennifer was undergoing a routine physical examination at the medical center, I walked over to the park to read a book.


As I enter the park from Duboce Avenue I began looking for a place to plop down. My eyes were immediately drawn to a bench on the high west end of the park that offered an exceptional view of the commons and the surrounding neighborhood. Unfortunately, the bench was occupied.

I reluctantly chose another spot nearby that provided only an adequate view. Periodically, as I sat there reading I would look up to see if the preferred bench was still in use. Eventually, the young woman and her child who had been sitting there since I arrived stood up to leave.

I quickly marked the page I was reading with a piece of paper and headed towards the bench. As I was sitting down, I noticed on the bench beneath me an astonishing twist of fate. I immediately jumped up.

There, carved into the bench where I had just sat down was my name – DEE.


If you would like to read other slices of my life click here.

3 comments:

mythopolis said...

Actually I carved that there. I was thinking, boy, if Dee ever stumbles across this he's gonna freak!

Seriously though, the uncanny part is how drawn you were to want to sit on that particular bench - before discovering your name there. It's like the opening of a Twilight Zone episode!

Stickup Artist said...

Isn't that weird? Good weird. Your book looks interesting too.

Owen said...

I think someone was carving "DEEP", but they got scared off before finishing...
:-)